Tag: thinking

How real is any of this, our minds continually intertwined with the screen of irreality. We can only be certain of what can see, surely.

But the computer is an extension of our brain. Technology presents an alternative existence that replaces the status-quo with a broad range of possibilities. We are just beginning to see the amalgamation of mind and machine.

Reality has been in the ‘August imagination‘ all along. But like a parachute, cognition is just now cracking open to double its processing power in collaboration with artificial intelligence and algorithms that are constantly improving.

Technology stretches our eyes beyond optical error, begging for a fresh approach. Reality and irreality will work together to fill in the illusion of an empty calendar as we know it. Looking neither right nor left, the human mind works ahead.

People don’t like thinking. It’s painful. Like denoting page numbers, you have to get your brain’s cells to assemble in an attempt to establish some order.

There’s a reason why there are so few philosophers and so many people attending entertainments. It is easier to sit back and play, to consume in our default setting rather than tinkering with abstract trains of thought.

Attention works like a loose gate. We can’t always control what information sneaks in, nor can we parse the data so it makes sense coming out.

We grind away at the information life throws at us, some of it tangible and worthwhile but most it nonsense.

Like a Google search, the stuff worth keeping is like finding a needle in a haystack. When we discover something of value, it sticks. We share the knowledge with others, recasting it as our own.

Yet, our minds remain terrible RSS readers.

It’s impossible to unhear and unsee things — conversations, teacher’s lessons, tweets — without getting sucked into the commercialization of attention. The public sphere promotes mindless chatter, so rationalization sinks to the bottom.

The race to admiration prevents the interrogation of ideas. The noisy flood of information buffers thought until finally, the chaos settles to the bottom. And pieces of clarity return.

“You could just think your query and download the relevant knowledge directly in your mind.”

Forget Ritalin. Forget Google and Evernote acting as our second brains holding all the information we can’t. And instead, prepare for brain implants where mind melds with machines. We don’t even have to type, click, or touch anything. We just think and imagine commands.

As part of a clinical trial called “Brain Gate,” 13 applicants at Brown University have had a sensor placed into their motor cortex and so far have been able to control cursor movement on a screen. Says doctor John Simerall at Brown University building the neurotechnology device:

“Simply by imagining intuitive movements participants can immediately control a robotic device.”

Your best ideas come when you’re not trying your best but when you’re not trying at all.

Ideas hit you when you’re resting, when your mind is at ease. This is because the mind never shuts off. It’s always processing knowledge, thoughts, and experience even in a perceived dormant state. Says composer and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda:

“A good idea doesn’t come when you’re doing a million things. The good idea comes in the moment of rest. It comes in the shower. It comes when you’re doodling or playing trains with your son. It’s when your mind is on the other side of things.”

Creativity is always awake

Creativity is always awake but it needs time to bloom. It takes in new information and gets feedback along the way. Furthermore, there’s no such thing as a eureka moment. A good idea is an accumulation of bad ones, cleaned up and simplified through trial and error.

Above all, something magical seems to happy though when you step away and let the brain do the work. It makes its own unforced connections.

How to be more creative 1. have many ideas 2. hate them all3. accept that you’ve failed in life4. abandon project5. suddenly, miraculously, a good idea comes when you least expect it6. repeat until you lose your mind

There is no doubt that the mind changes as it ages. You’ll be a different person in your 20s, 30s, and so on.

For some, brain deterioration is genetic. While you can’t medicate mental problems away, you can upgrade your internal software by widening your perception and controlling your emotions to so-called triggers.

The human brain is plastic

Strengthening the operating system protects against the destructive forces of sensory stimulants that try to undermine chemical synchronicity. Knowing that you can gauge your reactions to uncertainty while strengthening the bonds between neurons and synaptic connections helps alleviate anxiety’s thinking problem.

Babies are born platform agnostic; it’s mostly the environment that shapes their internal compass as they grow into adults. Health, philosophy, and social behaviors produce an entire ecosystem of choices where balancing the right springs and gears to maintain the human clock is the key, per say.

Remember what it was like to be bored before the internet spread its wings of distraction?

The newbies won’t confess. With everything available to them at their thumbs, they’ll never know a world where people once stared at walls for nothing. Magazines at the dentist’s office will remain untouched, replaced by the rectangular glow of entertainment on handheld devices.

But the adults aren’t any better. We confuse busyness with checking email, answering texts, viewing Instagrams, or looking up stocks.

Everyone is suffering at the mercy of accelerated time, of chasing the closest dopamine hit to avoid dealing with the ennui of the present. We busy ourselves going somewhere, overlooking the serenity of what is near and remaining hooked on a ludic loop to numb the pain of idleness.

Similarly, we can’t dribble a basketball nor soccer ball effectively while focusing on the mechanics of the perfect touch. The gears of cognition get in the way of flow.

Habits are bicep curls for the brain

Good habits strengthen human software, primarily if we aim to do something consistently. Like brushing our teeth, it’s the repetitive locomotion that undermines inertia and compels one to keep connecting the chain.

Plugged in, always on, absorbed in the energy of an internal lighthouse, blind to our own self-care.

The human instant suffers from too much closeupness, leaving little time to zone out. Time runs deep between canyons. Water flows patiently over rocks. The urge to speed up silences the music still in us.

We’re rhythmic creatures who make reality, not ones to be stuck and consumed by it. The new script requires that we think before we act. The robot is already preprogrammed and ready.

We end up aligning with nature’s intent. We see the world through the lens we grow up with. We are the products of our environment, the sum total of our existence.

Yet, we can become a variety of human. We can develop an expanded toolset that includes others. We can shut off stray thoughts and ignore droll distractions, replacing them with dreams of boredom. However, we stay light and loose.

We set the brain roaming with no clear destination in mind, only a feeling of intuition. The freedom of unforced attention makes harmony in the auditory wilderness. The brain functions in a mysterious way to find parity between the blind and the deaf.